| Abstract: | Legal cases are increasingly used in the social sciences as the raw material for social analysis. While this is entirely laudable as a research strategy, the analytical methods used in the social sciences to study cases are too often simplistic and reductionist. Positivism is too often the preferred analytical mode. I argue that the legal texture of cases ought to be retained by social scientists, just as we ought to be more aware of the problematic nature of interpretation, an issue embedded within legal discourse. In contrast to those who contend that the interpretive turn in the social sciences is nihilistic and subjective, I suggest reasons for understanding the interpretive turn as an organized social practice dependent upon social standards of right and wrong. These issues are illustrated by reference to a recent court case involving a corporation that secretly and illegally relocated production so as to avoid its pension obligations. |
